9 photos that show the extraordinary evolution of the phone over 80 years

Alexander Graham Bell makes the first long distance telephone call, circa late 1870s.
Wikipedia Commons
In 1876, inventor Alexander Graham Bell patented the first phone: a bulky device with a curved mouthpiece and earpiece connected by wires. It looked much different than the iPhones of today.

In the 1930s, famed industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss created what many consider to be the first modern telephone: the Model 302. Its design signaled a departure from earlier models: the ringer is in the phone (instead of a separate component), the cradle lies horizontally, and you speak and listen to the same piece resting on top.

After the Model 302, AT&T realized it could sell the phone to the masses. The phone's traditionally square base was replaced by a slimmer design with a touchpad, called the Trimline, first produced by the phone company in 1965. Buttons for "*" and "#" were added too.

As the 1960s went on, phones got even smaller. The Grillo Cricket, created by Italian designers Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper, can fold up, setting it apart from other phones at the time. The clam-shell shape influenced the design of the modern flip phone.

Up until 1977, AT&T had a monopoly on phone design in the US. But that year, the Supreme Court lifted restrictions that once prevented people from buying and designing their own phones. This decision, along with AT&T's divestment from the Bell Company, resulted in all kinds of creative phone designs, including the '80s Beocom one below.

Two years later, Motorola launched the the StarTAC, a small gray flip phone with a display screen and oval keys.

The iPhone, which debuted in 2007, transformed the phone by turning it into a tiny, mobile computer. Though other touchscreen phones had come before it, the iPhone's sleek interface revolutionized mobile phone design.